Dolly Parton’s husband – who she married in a secret ceremony aged simply 20 – has died.
The nation music star’s web site stated Carl Dean died on Monday in Nashville.
Parton stated in an announcement: “Carl and I spent many wonderful years together. Words can’t do justice to the love we shared for over 60 years. Thank you for your prayers and sympathy.”
Dean was the inspiration behind Jolene, considered one of her greatest hits.
She stated she wrote the track after a flirty financial institution clerk appeared to take an curiosity in him.
“She got this terrible crush on my husband,” Parton instructed NPR in 2008.
“And he simply beloved going to the financial institution as a result of she paid him a lot consideration.
“It was kinda like a running joke between us… So it’s really an innocent song all around, but sounds like a dreadful one.”
Picture:
Parton, 78, stated ‘phrases cannot do justice to the love we shared’. Pic: AP
The pair met exterior the Wishy Washy launderette, the place Parton was doing her washing, the day she moved to Nashville at age 18.
“I was surprised and delighted that while he talked to me, he looked at my face (a rare thing for me),” Parton stated in 2016.
“He seemed to be genuinely interested in finding out who I was and what I was about.”
Picture:
Parton pictured acting at a Dallas Cowboys recreation in November 2023. Pic: Reuters
Parton stated her file firm had requested her to attend to get married however the couple tied the knot two years later, in Might 1966.
Solely her mom, the preacher and his spouse have been in attendance on the ceremony – held out of state so native papers would not report it.
Dean owned a paving enterprise and famously shunned the limelight, so was very hardly ever seen in public with the star.
“A lot of people say there’s no Carl Dean, that he’s just somebody I made up to keep other people off me,” Parton joked in a 1984 interview with AP.
The couple by no means had any kids, however he’s survived by his brother and sister.
